Painting The Northern Lights: A Spectacular Event

As an artist, it is amazing what you are able to put on a canvas. Many people see something absolutely gorgeous and takes a photograph of it. But if you are an artist, you do not just want it on photo paper, you want it on canvas and basically anywhere you can think of as long as it stands out and speaks to you. One of these phenomenons are the beauty of the Northern Lights. Experiencing these lights first hand is anyone’s dream, especially for me as an artist. I would give anything to be able to see it in front of me and putting it on my canvas.

Viewing The Northern Lights

The Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis is named after Aurora, Roman goddess of the dawn and Borealis, god of the wind. Northern Lights viewing have become a frequent recreational activity in many northernmost regions of the Western world. Every year thousands of visitors to the “Aurora Oval” (an area where this natural light show can be seen best) ask where to see the Northern Lights.

Where to see the Northern Lights can be summed up with the following top three spots for Northern Lights viewing. Traveling to these Northern Lights viewing spots will let you experience this wonderful natural spectacular, firsthand without necessary breaking the bank.

Northern Lights In The Eastern Hemisphere

The first stop on our Northern Lights viewing map is Northern Scandinavia. We will make a stop along the very northern most tip of the Norwegian coast in the region called Finnmark (which borders three other nations, Sweden, Finland and Russia).

North Cape

For the ultimate northern light viewing amphitheater, we will make our way to the North Cape in Northern Norway. It is a 1000 ft (307 meters) high cliff, and tops our list of where to see the Northern Lights. Where a quarter million tourists a year make their way see this great color and light show, North Cape should be on your light show itinerary. Here, you can see the aurora borealis every other clear night, if not more frequently.

Iceland

The second stop on our where to see Northern Lights road trip is Iceland. Due to its geographical placement at the Earth’s pole, Iceland is located in what’s called the “Aurora Oval”. The “Aurora Oval” is the area on the Earth where the Northern Lights occur most and are brightest. The aurora borealis can almost always be seen In Iceland as long as the sky is clear.

Northern Lights In The Western Hemisphere

The third stop along our journey, and probably the easiest to reach if you live in the Americas, is the northern Aurora Oval area of choice – Alaska. Fairbanks, Alaska is a great location within the Aurora Oval.

Staying In Fairbanks

According to the Fairbanks Visitors Bureau, if a person stays just three nights in Fairbanks, they have an eighty percent chance of seeing the Northern Lights during their stay. Denali, in the northern part of the state is also on the Alaska’s watch list of where to clearly see the Northern Light. Where other Alaskan places maybe closer for Northern Lights viewing, they are also more difficult to reach and offer fewer accommodations except for the most hardy of travelers.

With any or all of these destinations on where to see Northern Lights travel list; you are sure to get a spectacular view of the Northern Lights from some place in world. Seeing photos and videos of these lights are amazing, but seeing it with the naked eye, can only be out of this world.